com(e).passion by The Epicene Furies

Oct. 23
com(e).passion
by The Epicene Furies
New BLK, 1213 Jones St.
8 p.m., $10 suggested donation
aetherplough.com, 319.5990
If you remember Alexander Payne’s superb debut Citizen Ruth, you’ll recall the scene with the circus of pro-life and pro-choice protesters outside the abortion clinic, all in a dither over the fate of Ruth Stoops’ unborn child. While the divided horde hollers at one another, Ruth drops a toilet tank lid on a guard’s head, exits through a window and quietly flees the scene unnoticed. Although fiction, the episode brutally outs the uncomfortable truth that movements often come to care more about the rhetoric and politics of a hot-button issue than each directly affected individual. Saturday’s com(e).passion contributes to the cultural conversation as did Payne’s film. Culled from first-person abortion narratives, the performance is billed as an invitation “to transcend typical politicking and embrace instead empathy and communion,” and will be followed with a talkback session. The Epicene Furies are led by whip-smart wordsmith Katie F-S, and rounded out by Shukura Huggins, Zedeka Poindexter, Shannon Jaxies, Dulcie Mueller, Felicia Webster (AKA Withlove, Felicia) and Marissa Gill. “Can we enter a creative space from so many separate paths and emerge with a sense of deeper humanity rather than rage?” asks Katie F-S. “We say yes. We say watch us.”